Fashionable Data

Self-Initiated 2009

Bring the mood around

The data explosion has brought about an aestheticization of information; as our experience of the world has become more complex and nuanced, the demands to our thinking aids have increased proportionally. Diagrams, maps and visualisation tools have become the language we resort to in this abstract and complex world. They help us understand, create and experience reality.

As more aspects of our lives become connected in the webbed environment of urban landscape, the information that we generate and consume collects into massive databases. As multiple data points spread out to occupy coordinates in a matrix, we see a network of contextual values that derive sense from their relationship with each other. We travel through semiotic and scientific landscapes that communicate through colour, shape, pattern, and emotion.

Data is everywhere. The modern mechanisms of production are all connected to a digital exchange of uninterrupted strings of 1’s and 0’s. The source and expression of information can be selected at random, and digital data can be turned into analogue artefacts to enhance the designer’s desired impact. Fashion gains acceptance from the spread with which this cultural assimilation can be shaped into desirable outfits.

The possibilities are endless. The process of design and creation could be automated, turning semantics into aesthetics. If connected with a machine, different techniques could be used, for example weaving; in this case, the metaphorical process of weaving draws form and relies on the internet’s densely connected web of current, topical information.

Each product – vest, t-shirt or sweater, is an evidence of a specific day or period. Over the course of time, this process of moving the information from the virtual to the real leaves a trail of these daily statements which, stitched together side-by-side, form a continuous tapestry of human life.